May/June 2005 :Bromeliad Gazette. Vol:29. Number:03

March Meeting from the Secretary’s desk
The name ‘Summer Brag’ was originally coined to cover those plants that had surprisingly survived the summer heat and were still in reasonable condition. It was not meant to mean only the best plants should be brought in. So it was a disappointment that so few people brought in plants for discussion. Where do flies go in the wintertime? Where do all the bromeliads from the raffle tables, sales tables, shows etc go? Is there a big black hole or is it apathy? Remember you get more enjoyment by being involved than just being entertained.
And so to the plants. With discussions like this it is interesting how some plants just come out of the woodwork. One example was Wittrockia smithii which has had as many changes of address as a gypsy. It is now rightly treated as a Nidularium and as such likes a bit of shade. If you have this plant, its name is Nidularium amazonicum which should be easy to remember because the plant does not come from the Amazon region. It was just that the original collector got lost when tramping through South America and thought that Rio de Janeiro was the Amazon!
Then to the tale or was it tail of the alleged Tillandsia that 3 of us had got from Michael Romanowski of Melbourne. One of us flowered it and brought it in reporting it had tails to the petals so was a Vriesea. I am of the opinion that it is a hybrid linked to Vriesea lubbersii but it was reported this was an unidentified species. The quest for its identity continues.
Admittedly if you do bring in a brag plant you do need to have a sense of humour. And so to the saga of xVriecantarea ‘Inferno’, a John Arden bigeneric hybrid. In 2000 Len Colgan had the privilege of being driver for Keith & Ruby Ryde in a Bromeliad crawl in the USA including the Conference at San Francisco. In the early part of the tour they visited John Arden and Len managed to get John to save a xVriecantarea ‘Inferno’ for him which he could pick up prior to departure. When in Tucson, Arizona they visited Mark Dimmitt of Tillandsia hybrid fame where Len saw an enormous specimen of this same hybrid and was offered an offset. He could not refuse and this plant was on the floor of the car for the rest of the tour, being dutifully taken to the hotel room every night and given a drink. When he finally left the USA he had THREE specimens on board.- two good and one travel worn! All made it to Australia but only the hardened off survived the rigours of gassing and quarantine! Meanwhile, towards the end of 2001 Margaret decided to import some hybrids from John Arden and after the panic of gassing and quarantine where we had only one loss she too was the proud owner of a living xVriecantarea ‘Inferno’. For some reason or another Len did not bring his flowering plant in but Margaret persuaded me to bring hers in even if it meant putting it on its side in the van to bring it in! we purposely put the plant on the table so even big Len had to look up to see its full inflorescence. Len’s plant is over a year older than Margaret’s plant and may be a bit bigger but you will never know! It is an impressive plant with a branched inflorescence with bright red floral bracts. It is large without too much fertilising and has Vriesea type flowers rather than the floppy Alcantarea type. No doubt it will be mingy with its offsets!
George Rudolph knows that Tillandsia ionantha grows on trees and decided to mount on a living fig tree. To make it easy for him the fig tree was a bonsai. I asked the expert on Bonsai judging – Alf Carr- if it was still a bonsai and we were assured that George now had a Bromeliad artistic arrangement instead!
We had three different variegated Neoregelia to look at namely ‘Inferno’ –yes it is still around, ‘Perfecta Tricolor’ and ‘Candy Stripe’. Aechmea were represented by ‘Shelldancer’ and ‘Bert’. And we must not forget the Billbergia ‘Golden Joy’.
There were several Tillandsia to brag about. Perhaps we can talk about one at length because it had a scape one metre long and still no sign of a flower. Seed had come from Karel Knize in Peru some 15 years ago in several packets, all with different numbers or localities. Clearly not identified by Karel but possibly a new species or form. If and when it finally flowers I will let you know because many are growing it whether they are aware of the fact or not!
Len was proud of his T. zoquensis – how about that for a name. It was so new that he had never heard of it when he bought it – probably the only one in Oz – until I was able to show him a photo of what it should look like in flower. It is in that broad group around T. fasciculata and is a brilliant red in the wild. How is it we rarely can achieve such colouring here in Adelaide. And we must not forget the white petalled T. caput-medusae.
It is interesting with many of the Mexican tillandsias with their predominantly purple/blue tubular flowers that some should become albino. Whether they would survive long in the wild is a moot point but they certainly are collectors items. Some have even been given botanic names and some cultivar names.
Some Tillandsia hybrids are hard to identify but some are distinctive. One that stands out especially when in flower is ‘Didi’s Gem’ with a guess at didisticha and geminiflora as possible parents. No doubt we will bump into this as an unknown Tillandsia in the future because they certainly get around.
Anyone who thought T. ‘White Star’ was a T. jucunda can be forgiven. This is a Mark Dimmitt hybrid where he used T. ixioides and T. recurvifolia as parents. Many Tillandsia hybrids are not as good as either parents but if you are a purist you regrettably have to keep up with what man is tickling!

March 19/20th Show and Sales.
It really all started on March 8th when I received an Email from Malcolm Campbell saying if I could get a couple of jpegs (photos in Computer language) by 9am the next day we could get something in the Messenger. Phew – Mission accomplished! Later in the week Jon Lamb rang and said he had space in the Advertiser gardening page on Friday 18th March. Would I be interested in having the Advertiser photographer call round to take pictures? What a question?! The photographer duly arrived. It was raining! This was fantastic because he was really taken with the way raindrops fell into the centre of a flowering Neoregelia sending ripples around the miniature lilypond. I had to drag him away so he could take a photo or two of my beloved tillandsias. One he took was of T. streptophylla which you may have noticed turned out to be champion Tillandsia .
Wednesday before the Show. Daughter rang to check up on me and to say that at least Hallett Cove knew there was a Brom Show on because there was a picture in the local free paper. Information filtered through that it was even more widespread! We got Bill Treloar to volunteer and he was prepared to come down from Bute early on the Friday to help load our van and get the plants, black cloths and signs to the Hall! The Advertiser had come good with their promise and it was a full page spread – nothing like it had happened in our history! Keith Bradtberg was able to rush down a carload of plants -some sale, some display - at 7pm and we were as ready as we could be for the grand opening at 10am the following day. The weather forecast was for a great weekend and I had a dread that we would be swamped with visitors and customers.
8am the workers arrived and by 9am the judges were hard at it. At 9.30 I had my usual chat with Jon Lamb on ABC Radio saying how resilient Bromeliads can be and how many we had for sale. At 9.55, THEY started arriving. It was at least three deep around the sales tables. By lunchtime few plants were left and some sellers had even gone home to see what else they had spare. Even so the tables were bare by 3.30pm. Sunday morning even more sales plants were brought in so we had full tables again. Sunday visitors were different to the norm in that we expect them to browse not buy, but for some reason this year was different and by 3pm only a few Tillandsias were left. At 2.55pm the fisherman who called in last year at the same time to buy a ticket for the Raffle and won first prize called in again. This time he brought in his mate and, yes, his mate won first prize!!
It was hard to analyse what had caused them to come in their hordes although the main comment was from the local paper with the Advertiser running a close second. Then the radio coverage. Nobody mentioned our advert in the Saturdays Advertiser. It is a pity we do not know the real success of our mailing system although some who had clearly received letters did come. All I do know is that we will never be so lucky with publicity again. The Treasurer was happy as we added over $2000 to our funds. Nearly $9000 of plants were sold and the raffle brought in over $200.
Despite the cooler Summer we had, the standard and volume of Show plants was not quite up to our usual standard. Perhaps we are old and need young blood to stir us up! It was great seeing Andrew Rawlinson getting involved and on a sharp learning curve.
Prize winners were
Josie Tonkin Trophy for grey leaved tillandsias – Derek Butcher with Tillandsia streptophylla
Margarete Reppin Trophy for Pitcairnioideae – Keith Bradtberg with Dyckia ‘Warren’
President’s Trophy for Bromelioideae – Len Colgan with xNeotanthus ‘Cardboard’.
Gummow Trophy for best Specimen in Bromelioideae – Maureen Hick with Cryptanthus ‘Florence Wasley’
Marie Robinson Trophy for green leaved Tillandsioideae – Adam Bodzioch with Vriesea ospinae var. gruberi
Neoregelia Trophy – Bill Treloar with Neoregelia pauciflora
Artistic Merit Trophy – George Rudolph with ‘Quito’
Ede Schaefer Trophy for Champion of Champions – Bill Treloar with Neoregelia pauciflora

April meeting from the Secretary’s desk
We concentrated on seed raising and this is how it evolved.
All Bromeliads have one style and 6 stamens. The style is the female part in the centre of the flower and leads to the ovary. The stamens are on the outer edge of the floral bed and the anthers at the top are the ones that produce pollen which is the male role. This pollen can be blow in the wind or be transported by pollinators.
When the stigma lobes at the top of the style are sticky, pollen adheres to them. For every grain of pollen two sperm are produced which race down the style tube to find an ovule to fertilise. Remember one pollen grain per ovule and the ovary may contain many ovules. In theory you can get different fathers involved in the same seed pod. Plants prefer pollen from another plant of the same species but some make do by using their own pollen especially after the flower has been open for some time.
Although some bromeliads never seem to set seed in captivity there are many that do and these are what we will be concentrating on.
We will not touch on hybridising because to be a good hybridist you need to know at least Mendel’s theory and how it applies to Bromeliaceae. It is not just a case of getting pollen from one flower and putting it on another flower. Many bromeliads are fecund as well as promiscuous. In other words they will grab pollen from anywhere and do not need human intervention for this. A proper hybridist will check the progeny of his efforts to see if he has succeeded in what he planned.
We will be showing you that if you do grow ANY Bromeliad from seed you have to check whether hybridisation has happened by accident. If this has happened, the name on the seed packet cannot be used for these plants. If you are going to cultivate and sell any of these they do need a new Cultivar name. In other words growing bromeliads from seed is not a game and there are certain obligations.
Finally, remember that any seed obtained from a hybrid will always produce different looking progeny.
With Bromeliads there are three sub-families – Pitcairnioideae, Bromelioideae, and Tillandsioideae - each with different seed and different ways of growing such seed.
At this meeting we will concentrate on the first two groups. Those that have the dry capsule seed-pod with seed that has wings - as Bill said “like parsnip seed” AND those that produce berries and you can squeeze out the seed when ripe.
There are many ways to grow Bromeliads from seed. The only rules to follow are
1. What you put in pot can vary between builders sand, soil mix, soil mix for seed raising, sphagnum moss etc. It has to be pathogen free unless you are seeking fungal growth!
2. Seed should be placed on the top of the surface and not covered
3. All should be kept moist for at least the first 3 months of life. This is best achieved but putting all in a plastic bag.
4. Do not despair if germination does not occur in the first few weeks especially if seed has come from overseas.
5. If you have internet access check the Kitchen method on www.fcbs.org/articles/kitchen.htm
6. Last but not least . Utilise the warmer months of the year. Don’t sow seed in July/August unless you have some sort of heat. If you are desperate the top of the fridge (Outside!) at the back can be used!
Bill Treloar just loves the pricklies and he introduced us to his ‘parsnip seeds’. He had just been to the Adelaide Botanic gardens – with permission – to collect seed and he brought a few packets along to share. He was able to show what the seed pods looked like when they are developing and warned that you have to be ready when they ripen. As soon as the pod splits open, the seed is at its prime and you will get best germination if you act early. Most of this group has plants that grow terrestrially so it seems preferrable to choose something solid to sow the seeds on. The one exception could be Fosterella and some Pitcairnia which although terrestrial like wet places to grow.
Bill uses builders sand to sow his seed on and succeeds. Len Colgan uses soil mix and succeeds. You can be lazy and leave your seedlings for years under these conditions but your plants will remain as ‘grass’. You need to do some thinning out. At about 3 months you will see some bigger than the others. These can be carefully teased out and planted in their own little pot.
At about a year old the plants will have their adult shape and some may be flowering by 3 years but this group is made up of many long living plants so a wait of 20 year to flowering is not uncommon. BUT think of the pleasure it brings for such a long wait.
Maureen Hick lead the discussion on our berried friends. In some cases the berries change colour to show ripeness and sometimes it takes a gentle squeeze. Bill says they are great eating but that means less to sow. Most times the berries are easy to see but with neoregelias you have to do a bit of poking about in the centre cup about a couple of months after flowering has finished. Sometimes this is a smelly occupation because excess water has helped the nectar to ferment! But if you find white berries you are on the right track. Just pull out one and give it a squeeze. If the seeds that pop out are white you’ll have to wait a bit longer! They should be brown when ripe – just like an apple. If the seed is from a variegated plant and the green top knot has white stripes there is a greater chance you will get the odd variegated seedling – something to watch for. Most neoregelias around are hybrids so remember that seed from these will not be the same as mother! You should be looking carefully for something really different which will need its own name. If it is an ordinary run-of-the-mill type plant then cull it. Be like a gold fossicker!
Let us say you have ripe seed in your hand with lots of gooey stuff. In the wild this gooey stuff gets processed by birds! There are several ways to clean your seed but Maureen puts hers in a bottle with water and shakes. Getting out the seed and drying it is the next challenge. I go the lazy way by sowing goo and all. I don’t worry if a few seeds get furry with fungus because usually sufficient survive for my purposes.
Because this group is mainly epiphytic Maureen uses sphagnum moss. It is easy to buy a bag of this and it lasts! Maureen boils hers to get more sterile conditions and even boils the water – rain water preferred. Here, I find sphagnum moss is quite sterile for my purposes and I am not really after quantity survival!
Pricking out is a similar chore as in the pricklies, only here they retain their grass-like appearance for longer. The new boy on the block, David Wecker, was able to show the advantage gained by early pricking out and had even experimented with fertiliser at this tender age. This is something I have never dared to do!
Seed was handed out for members to try. Some will have success and some not but it will be exciting for those who do have success but also a challenge. What do you do with 50 seedlings when you realise how much space they take up? My recommendation is to cull, otherwise you will flood the market!
Seedlings were handed out too. Some will succeed in transplanting them successfully and some not but it is a learning curve!
There were a few adult plants brought in and we had a quick look at them. First they was a beaut variegated form of Edmundoa lindenii. Yes, you are going to have to remember this name. It covers what used to be hairy Canistrum! Then Nidularium citrinum variegatum which has been in Australia for over 20 years. The only thing wrong is that with this name it should look like a Canistropsis but it doesn’t. It is in fact a very showy bigeneric with a dash of Aechmea. It was called xNidumea ‘Angeline’ for a while but is currently an xAechopsis and has an intriguing variegated inflorescence.
Years ago now, Grace Goode crossed an Aechmea recurvata with an Aechmea orlandiana but did not immediately cull or name any of the progeny. So there are many plants circulating Australia under this formula. Only later was the name ‘Big Ben’ attached to the clone that has dark blotching on the leaves from the A orlandiana. This surfaced in New Zealand of all places. The interesting thing is whether foreign pollen was also involved – see my earlier paragraphs – because there is a variation in the plants. If the Aechmea recurvata AND the A. orlandiana were true species then the progeny should have looked the same. In other words the attempt at hybridisation was not checked before release of the progeny. The plant brought in was to my mind a fine specimen of Aechmea recurvata var ortgiesii despite its label.
I know I prattle along about plant names and plant identity but that is what I enjoy most. I call myself a quasi-taxonomist which means resembling a taxonomist and is not spelt ‘crazy’!!
So many of our plants have fascinating stories about their origins that it hard to know when to stop. For example there was a well grown Neoregelia ‘Garnish’ to see and newcomers can be forgiven when they say they can’t see the difference between that variegated Neoregelia and that one. These ones started out their life in Costa Rica. Some got to Australia to be named here by two different sources, some went to the USA and then to Australia to be named here, and some were named in the USA to come to Australia. In other words 4 different ways to get names. What are the chances of duplication? A similar situation arose with the Neoregelia ‘Takemura’ hybrids. Over 40 years ago Richter behind the Iron Curtain produced hybrid(s) which got to a Dr Takemura in Japan. He swapped plants with Ralph Davis in Florida and the Takemura hybrids came into being. But nobody wrote about them so nobody knows exactly what the ‘Takemura’ hybrids look like. For those interested there is a fascinating story in Grande 1 – a magazine from 1978 that we have in our library. It must be 20 years ago that Len Cork imported his ‘Takemura’ from the USA and it cost an arm and a leg at the time!
You must all have been attracted to the flowering Vriesea with branched spike. This was sold by Olive Trevor for many years as ‘carinata multibranched’ which was an invalid and unattractive name. We can thank our own Assistant Secretary in getting Olive to change the name to ‘Rainbow Lori’
While I cannot praise Bill from Bute on his choice of mounting material for his tillandsias he certainly had a shock for me especially as I know he has not had any recent visits to Gardenworld in Melbourne! Here we saw flowering T. pruinosa and T. funckiana. With his dry conditions up there it was also a surprise to see T. matudae budding up, AND of course there was a bonsai’d Vriesea philippocoburgii in flower. It was a much more manageable size than what I usually produce down by the airport!

A new Tillandsia from Guatemala by Juergen Lautner in Die Bromelie 2/2004. Translated by George Rudolph
In Feb.& March 1999 three of us, Juergen Brinckmann, Manfred Kretz and myself, as a new group, visited the lovely Guatemala in Central America. As on previous trips we used the Tillandsia Nursery ‘Clavella de Air’ as a base. The friendly owners Mimi and Uwe Feldhoff including Uwe Sito (and bodyguards) picked us up as usual at Guatemala City airport.
They had booked rooms for us at the Posada de los Reyes S.A., a hotel operated by Germans. This is located in Zone 11 not far from Tinca, a suburb of Guatemala City where the Feldhoff’s still had their original main business at the time. After we had visited the other two nurseries of Clavella de Air in Sac Javillar and El Hato we hired a Mazda 626 and were ready to carry out our plans.
We visited the beautiful forests on the road to Chilasco in the Departmento Baja Verapaz, where you get the impression of a fairytale wood. It used to have a large number of T. standleyi, which hybridized with the many T. punctulata producing lovely hybrids. The trees had many T. lucida, T. welzii, T. multicaulis, various types of Catopsis and Orchids growing on them. This time I discovered with shock that much was burnt off, trees cut down, fences erected, small huts built and paprika and tomatoes planted. What had been a beautiful Tillandsian stand had disappeared. As well, in the same area many hectares of hilly rainforest had been cleared to grow the so-called ‘Leather fern’ under shade cloth so that it can be exported to Europe and the U.S.A. as a base for flower arrangements.
On another day we were lucky to find the epicactus Disocactus eichlamii (Wingt) Britt. & Rose not collected since 1905 in the Dept. Santa Rosa on a hill near the Volcano de Pacaya. We found two clones. We had to find our way through knee high lava, as this volcano not long ago erupted and the surroundings for miles were covered with lava and much of the forest destroyed. We found more epiphytic cacti like Disocactus quetzaltecus (Standl. & Steyer) Kimn in Dept. Quetzaltenango and Disocactus biformis (Lindl.) on the Atitlon Lake in Dept. Solata.
My journal for the 21/02/1999 shows the following entry: L99/17 2400m San Marcos.
On the Carretera 1 after San Marcos at m 266 in a rainforest we found masses of a Gunnera species (Plant with rhubarb-like leaves of the family Heloragaceae) in a pasture of shade-trees T. tricolor and nice Vriesea species with a red sword.
We found two small plants which Manfred and Juergen took back to Germany and a very large one we took back for Uwe Feldhoff. Unfortunately we found no more small plants so I missed out!
As the Ca.1 from San Marcos goes to El Carmen, the Mexican border-crossing , we had the dubious pleasure of being stopped by two Guatemalean border police officers to inspect our car for ‘Drogas y Armas’ (Drugs). Naturally they found none and were not interested in our ‘drugs’ - Bromeliads!
On a drive to Laga Izabel we saw the terrible damage Cyclone Mitch had done in 1998 where enormous mudslides dumped tons of large trees and gravel on fields and roads and damaged many bridges.
The three weeks in Guatemala passed too quickly. The rented car behaved itself other than a radiator problem. And we were sad when a little dog ran under the car and was killed. On the bright side we found a new location for T. salmonea, which had only been known to come from Chiapas in Mexico, and we were all still in one piece.
I only found out later in Germany from Ralph Bauer, Offenburg, the expert in this field, how lucky we were to find Aisocactus eichlamii. And there was the luck in finding that new Vriesea species which, when it flowered for Manfred in 2003, turned out to be a Tillandsia and was described by R. Ehlers as T. kretzii.
I find it sad that the firm ‘Clavella del Air’ no longer exists and I no longer hear from our host and friend Uwe Feldhoff and his wife. It will stay forever in my memory.

Note from the Editor
This tillandsia will remain rare and probably never reach Australian shores but it is good to drool now and again. To give you an idea what this plant looks like you can check www.fcbs.org/pictures.htm on the Web but the following comparisons should help you imagine what it is like.
It differs -from T. nervata: by a bipinnate, not simple inflorescence; the floral bracts are longer, carinate only at the apex and not lepidote; the sepals are not alate, but slightly carinate;
- from T. lampropoda: the blades are not appressed grey lepidote; flower bracts not broad-ovate but elliptic, only carinate at the apex, bright glabrous, not punctulate lepidote; sepals less carinate; petals up to 8 cm long, not 5 cm;
-from T. lampropoda var. major: by shorter leaves; scape bracts longer, sheaths half as long as the spike; petals yellow, not white.
Now, you can get T. lampropoda from Gardenworld in Victoria and just dream!

Tillandsia kretzii
Click to enlarge in new window.